Picket and Pickles

(Ce billet sera traduit en français quand les corrections seront terminées…) Grading season is in full swing and concludes what has been, by all accounts, an insane academic year.

September started normally enough, with the addition of a new class to my portfolio: Nominate Torts, and its vastly random array of cases (slippery fowl + tulips + spring-gun = Bird v. Holbrook). Rumors of a looming strike circulated, while I was caught teaching the niceties of defamation.

October brought talk of governance and compensation, which translated into a vote and three weeks of picketing in November. Profs across campus were lucky in that these three snowless weeks could be described as warm – at least by Manitoba standards. The strike itself was bittersweet. Though it allowed me to meet colleagues I would not have otherwise crossed paths with, and to hear about the amazing teaching and research going on at the UofM, it caused serious disturbances to our students, and severely impacted our academic calendar. I will not comment further on the strike or its results here. Suffice to say that once classes resumed, the rest of the year disappeared in a blur.

Indeed, to minimally affect our students, the winter session debuted while we were still grading, a less than ideal time to start teaching Corporations I for the first time. When February came, I was lucky to have such excellent co-coaches for the Fox Moot, and I am very proud to report that our students did exceedingly well, with both of our teams going to semi-finals, and bringing honourable mentions for factum writing and advocacy skills.

I am now grading, and looking forward to resume writing. The coming weeks will be filled with academic events and I can’t wait to meet and exchange ideas with new colleagues from across the country, and the Atlantic.